Iowa Boarding Kennel Recommendations

[stafinois]

I am hoping that somebody in Iowa can give me some recommendations on boarding kennels for escape artist dogs. We live in NW Iowa, but attend a family reunion every year near Cedar Rapids. We typically go through Ft. Dodge, Waterloo, and Cedar Rapids, but could alter the course. The kennel could be anywhere in between. If I could, I'd just take him to the reunion, but it's not set up to be remotely dog friendly.

I picked up Harry the Malinut from the boarding kennel yesterday, only to discover that he had escaped their Super Delux Escape Proof Kennel a couple of times. I had selected this kennel because they had an indoor/outdoor run that was covered inside and out. Fortunately, his escapes were in the indoor portion of his run. I guess the Saturday morning kennel attendant showed up for work, and was surprised to find Harry waiting for her in the kitchen. They assume that he crawled through a hole in the lid that wasn't very secure, dropped in the the run next to him that contained Grant, my other dog, and then jumped out of Grant's uncovered kennel. After they reinforced that spot, he just started tearing at the chain link on the kennel door, and got out
that way.

I don't know that a housesitter would work. I don't know that he would allow anybody into our home if we were not there. He's very territorial.

Thanks for any recommendations that you have!

 

[Hillside]

I'm no help, I have never boarded Saga, anytime I have to go out of town I either bring her or she goes to stay with my ex's girlfriend. I can do some scouting though.

 

[SizzleDog]

Tough call, I don't board my dogs. DO NOT go to Greenbelt Kennels though! (Sad... I have a list of bad boarding facilities but no GOOD boarding facilities. Yuck.)

 

[Hillside]

Yeah, Greenbelt is, to say the least, very irresponsible. There was one afternoon at the dogpark that the people from Greenbelt had 10 dogs there between 2 people. They had several dogs that a) shouldn't have been at the dogpark to begin with and b) had no control over the dogs they had with them. It was stated within the park rules, no more than 2 dogs per person. There was a standard poodle with them that was terrorizing Django, the Aussie in my sig, until Sizzledog's Ilsa stepped in. Apparently a 80ish pound Doberman isn't as good of a target as a 33 pound merley dog.